How to Cut a Pineapple

Step by step instructions on how to cut a pineapple, so you keep the sweetest and juiciest parts.

Photography Credit:
Elise Bauer

When I was little, one of our favorite treats was fresh pineapple. We kids would gather around the table with wide-eyed fascination as our father would carefully prep the pineapple.

My father’s method is simple, though not at all obvious by just looking at the pineapple.

How to Properly Cut a Pineapple

First you off the green spiky top. Then carefully cut the skin off the sides, as close to the edge of the pineapple as you can. The sweetest and juiciest parts of the pineapple were usually right at the very edge.

Cutting close to the edge exposes a bunch of brown, scraggly dots, called eyes, that need to be removed. You can’t eat them, they’re too prickly.

If you looked carefully you can tell that the eyes line up in a spiral. My father carefully cuts away at the eyes, making V-shaped trenches as he rotates around the pineapple to remove them.

When the pineapple is all ready to go, you can slice it in rounds or make lengthwise cuts to make spears or chunks.

How to tell a pineapple is ripe

The best way to tell that a pineapple is ripe is to pick it up and smell it from the bottom. If it smells like sweet, fresh pineapple juice, it’s ripe.

If it doesn’t smell of pineapple, it isn’t ripe. If it smells fermented, it’s over-ripe.

A ripe pineapple should be firm, not soft, and the leaves should look fresh, not dried out. The pineapple can be green, golden, or a mix, it doesn’t matter. What matters is the smell.

Contrary to a common misperception, pineapples do not continue to ripen once picked. They will get more golden, and more soft, but the sugars will not continue to develop after they’re picked. (See Hawaiian Crown and Dole articles on this.)

Pineapples should be eaten soon after they’re bought. If you need to store them, store them in the refrigerator; they’ll keep longer.

Pineapple Rounds are a Terrific Treat for Kids

My father would slice the pineapple in rounds, giving each of us forks to spear our own round in the tough center.

It’s a pineapple pop!

Then we would run outside, holding the pineapple round on our fork, and eat that pineapple ring all around the sweet juicy edges (taking our drippy mess outside).

If all the rounds were accounted for (there were six of us kids), and we were still desperate for more pineapple, we would nibble on the tough core until everything was eaten.

These days most people (sometimes me included) don’t bother with the spiral cuts, they just make deeper cuts initially to cut off the pineapple skin and the eyes together.

If you are rushed for time you can easily do that. But the far edges are the best part, especially if the pineapple is still a little green.

So here’s my dad’s way of cutting a pineapple, if you want to take a couple extra minutes to extract more of the juicy bits.

How to Cut a Pineapple

Ingredients

Method

1 Slice off the top: Place the pineapple on its side on a cutting board. With a sharp chef's knife, slice off the top green crown and about a half inch of the top of the pineapple.

Stand the pineapple upright on the cutting board.

2 Cut away the outer peel: Use a sharp knife to carefully cut away the outer peel, from top to bottom, following the contours of the pineapple.

Do not cut so deep as to cut away the eyes. The outer edge of the pineapple has the sweetest flesh, so you want to retain that if you can.

Cut off the bottom half inch or so of the pineapple.

3 Make diagonal cuts to carve out the pineapple eyes: Now you have a pineapple dotted with eyes which must be removed. You can use a small paring knife to carefully carve out each one, but there is an easier way.

Notice that the eyes all line up on a diagonal! Make a diagonal cut across the side of the pineapple, like a V-shaped trench, and more easily cut out all of the eyes that are on that diagonal.

Continue to work your way around the pineapple. You do waste a little bit of good pineapple this way, but not much, and it is a lot faster than trying to carefully cut out each eye.

4 Make the final cuts: Now the pineapple is ready to cut further. There are several ways to make the final cuts of the pineapple, depending how you are serving it.

If you want rounds, just lay the pineapple on its side and cut it into 3/4 inch rounds. For rings, cut out the tough core.

When we were kids we preferred to keep the core in. We liked to spear the core in a solid pineapple round with our fork, and then hold up the pineapple round to eat the ripe edges.

If you just want chunks, cut the pineapple lengthwise into quarters.

Cut out the tough core, then cut each quarter lengthwise again. Then cut crosswise into chunks.

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Elise Bauer is the founder of Simply Recipes. Elise launched Simply Recipes in 2003 as a way to keep track of her family's recipes, and along the way grew it into one of the most popular cooking websites in the world. Elise is dedicated to helping home cooks be successful in the kitchen. Elise is a graduate of Stanford University, and lives in Sacramento, California.

I buy a nearly golden one that smells good and leave for a couple of days, upside down if I can. They do seem to sweeten a bit, turning more golden, and not so itchy when perfectly ripe. 10 for 10? Production line and chop chunks into freezer bags for smoothies or fruit salad. I hear you can grow another pineapple from the top part!

Hi Susie, according to the experts (and the growers themselves), pineapples do not actually get any more sweet after they are picked (unlike bananas). They will soften though, and turn more yellow over time.

I’m Cambodian and this is how my mom has taught me how to cut a pineapple. Sure, it takes a while to get it done but you waste hardly anything. My daughter is currently 4 months old. You bet I’ll teach her how to do this one day when we start cooking together.

I worked over in China several years back. When we would buy pineapple from a street vendor, they would shave it right there, then pull out a V-shaped knife and cut the eyes out in this spiral fashion. My coworkers and I would just take the big chunks of pineapple and eat them as we walked home. I really wish I could find one of those knives over here! Those spiral corers don’t get to the really sweet part very well.

I LOVE my fresh pinapple from the local farmers market here in Atenas, Costa Rics. I try to use the WHOLE thing – I cut off the top, peel away some of the leaves at the bottom, then plant it; I cut out the center, hard part and puree it in my blender then make fruit leather from it – yum and easy to do in an oven!; AND i will now use your spiral method to cut out the eyes – even though the goats here on my finca (ranch) will not be as happy (they get all the left over stuff!)

My sister does not like pineapple, so that is more for me! Mom peels it, and cuts out each eye and she is fast at it. She also saves the peel of many fruits to flavor baked goods. Right now there are strips of lemon out on a rack to dry. She chops them, or lets them get really dry and put in spice grinder. Yummy to the tummy!

Will definitely try this method for cutting pineapple. I find if I buy green pineapple, it will eventually ripen if left on the counter. Pineapple is very high in digestive enzymes. Most of those are in the core. The core becomes very edible the riper the pineapple gets so don’t throw it away!

Hello Brenda, as mentioned in previous comments, a green pineapple left to sit will eventually change color and get more soft, but it will not get any more sweet than it was when it was picked. ~Elise